Sunday, March 5, 2017

Two Sides of the Same Old Coin: Ellison, Perez, and Democratic Party Establishment

After
months of campaigning, establishment favorite Tom Perez has won the
DNC chairmanship. For weeks, it was unclear whether Perez, supported
by Joe Biden and, implicitly, Barack Obama, would defeat Keith
Ellison, endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The race in
some ways appeared to re-open the Sanders-Clinton divide in the
Democratic party. In the end, Ellison lost by 35 votes (235 to 200).This
election occurs in a very particular political moment. Trump’s
election was an unexpected blow to the Democratic Party, which
actively worked to make Trump the Republican candidate in the hopes
that this would make it easier for Hillary to get elected. This was
clearly an erroneous calculation. To make matters worse, the
Republicans now also control the House, the Senate, and most local
and state legislatures. At the same time, the resistance movement
against Trump has been organizing large-scale actions, from the
massive January 21 protests, to the airport protests, to “A Day
Without Immigrants.” In this context, the Democratic Party is
attempting to rebuild itself and has chosen Tom Perez to lead the
party in this endeavour.The
vote for DNC chair is not open to anyone — not even to any
Democrat. The voters are the chairs and vice chairs of each state’s
Democratic Party who are elected or appointed on a state by state
basis.The
first thing Tom Perez did in his acceptance speech was to acknowledge
Keith Ellison, asking to suspend the rules and make him deputy chair
of the DNC, which was met with enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. He
spent much of his acceptance speech emphasizing unity, particularly
with Ellison, to whom he gave copious praise.Perez
was Secretary of Labor under Obama and served as Assistant Attorney
General in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department during
the Bush Era. He is considered part of the Clinton-Obama wing of the
Democratic party, as he backed Clinton in the primaries. After
Ellison joined the race and was clearly a favorite, Perez entered the
race at the behest
of Obama administration officials.As
many have argued, there are few programmatic differences between
Ellison and Perez; mostly, the differences boil down to which wing of
the Democratic Party each represents. Clio Chang in The
New Republic argues, “Both have strong progressive
records, both have support from various unions, and both have broadly
similar ideas on how they want to reform the DNC. Perez supporters
are quick to emphasize that, as ‘the most liberal member of Obama’s
cabinet,’ he is just as progressive as his opponent.” This
understanding has been echoed by the media, as the DNC chair debates
have made it exceedingly clear that the agreements between Perez and
Ellison far outweigh the disagreements.Given
this lack of substantial programmatic differences between the two, it
is significant that the Obama wing of the party encouraged Perez to
run against Ellison, a move that was likely intended as a snub of the
Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. Picking up on this, the New
Yorker reports, “Several people I spoke to, however,
described an Obama acutely interested in its outcome… Ellison’s
connection to Sanders is worrisome for many of those in Obama’s
orbit, as well as Clinton’s, and Sanders hasn’t helped ease their
concern during the D.N.C. race.” The Obama wing, in nominating
Perez, saught to maintain control of the party.However,
since entering the race, Perez has made the unity of the Democratic
Party a central part of his message. He was consistently careful not
to oppose Ellison too much, emphasizing points of agreement. After he
won, he and Ellison appeared in a press conference together, Ellison
donning a Team Tom pin and Perez an Ellison for DNC pin. For his
part, Ellison stressed the importance of unions in his acceptance
speech and the need to build a Democratic Party that would fight for
unions.Many
see the Perez win as a re-run of the Clinton-Sanders primary,
demonstrating that the Democratic party is indeed an establishment
party in which workers and young people’s opinions are unwelcome.
This sense was reflected in the fact that when Perez was announced as
the winner, a part of the audience tried to shout down out-going DNC
chair Donna Brazile, chanting "Party for the people, not big
money!"Yet,
this critique is based on the assumption that that if Ellison had
won, the Democratic party would be a party for workers and young
people radicalized by the current political moment. Nothing could be
further from the truth.Keith
Ellison, a Progressive?Ellison
announced his run for DNC chair only a few days after Clinton’s
astounding loss, vowing to re-energize the party and build a party
that could win elections. He was an early supporter of Sanders in the
primaries and then supported Clinton in the general election. He was
previously a community organizer and was generally seen as the more
progressive candidate in the race. For this reason, he was supported
not only by Sanders and Warren, but also by unions like the AFL-CIO
and by the growing Democratic Socialists of America.Ellison
was the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, and his faith made
him the subject of attacks within the Democratic Party. During his
run for chairman, Ellison’s past writings defending the Nation of
Islam “resurfaced” in the hands of the media. Wealthy donors to
the Democratic Party joined
the smear campaign and publicly condemned Ellison’s
supposed anti-semitism— allegations with no proof whatsoever. Since
then, Ellison has had to discuss the topic again and again.The
Muslim baiting within the Democratic Party is certainly consistent
with the Patriot Act extension passed under Obama, which
disproportionately attacked Muslims, but it is also very much
contrary to the flowery rhetoric of inclusion employed by the party.
Furthermore, at no point did Ellison or any other candidate
forcefully call the anti-semitism accusations what they really were —
attacks on Ellison based on his religion. Rather, he entertained the
questions in debate after debate. In the last debate, he even spoke
about his support of Israel, saying, “Here’s what I say. I voted
for $27 billion in bilateral aid to Israel over the course of about
six or seven votes… I believe that the U.S.-Israel relationship is
special and important. I have stood for that principle in service in
my whole career, and you can trust when I’m the DNC chair that
relationship will continue. We will maintain the bipartisan consensus
of US support for Israel if I’m the DNC chair.”Although
Ellison was Sanders’ candidate, he expressed little of Sanders’
anti-establishment sentiment. He spoke very little about Wall Street
and the 1% and about wanting to eliminate their influence in
politics. He did not confront “establishment” candidate Perez and
in some debates even allowed Perez to appear more progressive than
him. Take the closing statement in the most recent DNC debate, in
which Ellison said, “The DNC chair has to win elections and on this
stage, I think I have won more elections than anyone” and later
“I’ve raised over a million dollars for my state party.” These
statements not only position Ellison as very much part of the
political establishment, with no delimitation from the more
conservative wing of the Democratic party, he also discusses the
money he raised with no mention of a plan to combat the corporate
interests in the DNC. Earlier in the debate, he joined with other
nominees in defending their decision to attend a fundraising event
rather than the millions of women at the Women’s March. This, along
with his calls for unity in the Democratic Party and the complete
lack of focus on differentiating himself from the Democratic
political establishment in the debates, demonstrates that his
rhetoric has little in common with Sanders.Ellison does have
something in common with Sanders, however. Just like Sanders, Ellison
has captured the attention of people who seek real social change and
then managed to bring them into the Democratic Party by giving them
the illusion that the Democrats will fight for the working class and
the oppressed. Like Sanders, Ellison draws leftists who who fight for
social justice to the Democratic Party of record deportations, drone
bombings, and mass incarceration. This is certainly the case with the
thousands who have recently been drawn to the Democratic Socialists
of America. Many joined the DSA because they are looking for a more
radical response than the Democratic Party can offer to the immense
problems of capitalist society. They have been looking to socialism.
In this context, the DSA’s decision to endorse Ellison in a primary
that the DSA does not even have a say in has effectively served the
Democratic Party insofar as those disaffected by it are being led
straight back to them.Where
is the Democratic Party going?The
Democrats are attempting to rebuild themselves after a profound
crisis that began with anti-establishment candidate Bernie Sanders
who drew millions with his message against money in politics and the
profound inequalities in society. The DNC at the time did everything
they could to ensure that Sanders, who polled better against Trump,
lost the primary. The Democrats then went on to deepen their crisis
with the loss of the Presidency, of the House, and of the Senate.
Before the DNC election, it was evident that the Democratic Party had
chosen a message of returning to grassroots strategy, to community
organizing, and to a 50 state strategy. The central issues were not
Wall Street, the 1%, or corporate greed and this would be true even
if Ellison won the election.Yet,
the Democratic Party wants to paint itself as progressive and as the
most effective leadership to resist Trump. That is why it is
essential for them to position themselves as representing Sanders’
base. Perez spelled this out in his acceptance speech saying “We
are at a ’where were you?’ moment in American history… Some day
they are going to study this era in American history, and they are
going to ask the question: Where were you in 2017 when we had the
worst President in US history? And we will always be able to say
whether you are sitting here, whether you are sitting outside, or
whether you looking on across America, we will always be able to say
that the united Democratic Party led the resistance...” Perez
spells out the Democrats’ strategy for rebuilding itself perfectly
clearly: they will use the Resist Trump movement to get elected
across America.The
Democrats plan to use a movement that resists xenophobia and
anti-immigrants sentiments to elect more Democrats. This is the party
that deported more undocumented immigrants under the last
administration than under any other in history; the party of Bill
Clinton, who began construction of a border wall; and the party of
Hillary Clinton, who voted in favor of such a wall in the 90’s. The
Democrats want to lead a movement against the virulent anti-Muslim
policies of Donald Trump when it was Obama who dropped three bombs an
hour on the 7 countries affected by the Muslim Ban, a list that the
Obama administration drew up. The Democratic Party, whether led by
Ellison or Perez, is not a party for the working class and oppressed.
Those who are in the streets fighting against Trump’s policies must
also fight against the Democratic Party, which laid the groundwork
for Trump.>> The article above was written by Tatiana Cozzarelli and is reprinted from Left Voice.